If plans move forward, the district must call for the bond election by Feb. 18, and the board of trustees is slated to hold a special meeting Feb. 15 to make the final decision.
“We have literally three weeks. But the information hasn't changed,” CISD board President Jason York said. “It's not like we're sitting up here with new information; we're sitting up here with information that was on the November bond.”
In November voters approved three of five propositions that were on the ballot, but items that would have provided funding for recreational and stadium facilities throughout the district failed.
According to the district, the proposed May bond would consist almost entirely of projects that were included in the failed propositions with a total cost between $67.1 million and $105.65 million.
During the regular Jan. 27 meeting, the board evaluated three bond options, all of which would include two propositions that would provide funding to complete improvement projects throughout the district.
Proposition A would include funding for recreational facilities, such as practice fields, field houses, lighting replacements and more. Proposition B funding would be allocated to stadium expansions and facilities upgrades to address growth.
Several of the proposed projects would be used to complete campuses, such as the stadium expansion at Davenport High School, while others are connected to projects passed in previous bonds.
“This is not a new field house; this is not replacing a field house; this is a field house,” trustee Cody Mueller said. “This is because we don't have lockers for all the athletes at DHS. ... There’s no room for growth in those areas, and we’ve got to take care of that.”
During the board’s January meeting, trustees discussed future bonds and the challenges of passing athletics-related propositions.
In November, 22 school districts throughout the state presented athletics bond propositions to voters, Superintendent Andrew Kim said, and four districts passed the measures.
The district is planning a potential bond in 2023 to construct new schools to keep up with the rapid growth in the region, said Steve Stanford, assistant superintendent of communications and organizational alignment for CISD.
Officials estimate the district has a current bond capacity of $400 million without raising tax rates, Stanford said, a total which would likely be surpassed in 2023 if the proposed athletics projects were included with the proposed new school facilities.
In an effort to keep costs down, board members stressed the importance of focusing only on projects that were completely necessary in a May bond in anticipation of future bonds that will likely be necessary to keep up with the population growth in the district.
“Unfortunately there is not a perfect answer or a perfect solution,” Kim said. “If you’re looking for a perfect way out of this, I would abandon that idea and really think about what is accomplishable.”
